Quiz: Put your internal communications strategy to the test

Internal comms can be a tricky beast to tame. But whether your goal is managing potential issues, tracking shifts in sentiment or bringing your brand values to life, a solid internal communications strategy is well worth mastering.

Right now, however, it seems many B2B brands are losing their grip on internal comms.

The Institute of Internal Communication found that only 54% rate their organisation’s internal comms as ‘excellent’ - a 9-point fall from last year. Worse still, half of employees don’t trust their CEO or senior leaders, which raises an ugly question: how can businesses expect to accelerate growth when half of employees aren’t even on board? Obviously, I’m more of a words guy, but the math ain’t math-ing.

Let’s talk it through.

4 reasons internal communications matters

1. It gives your employees the ‘why’. Clear comms aligns everyone with the bigger purpose.
2. It protects company culture. Effective communication is especially important during times of change.
3. It builds trust in your business. A well-informed workforce feels valued, which helps prevent top talent from leaving.
4. It turns your employees into brand ambassadors. When people genuinely believe in your brand’s mission, they become your biggest advocates.

Yet far too often, internal communication is treated as simply another box to tick. And with that mindset, it’s no surprise the internal comms plan becomes an afterthought. But by aligning your internal communication with your external B2B marketing efforts, you can nurture a team that’s more inspired and more invested - and deliver stronger commercial results.

An internal communications strategy should begin with integrated stakeholder mapping, which plots out your internal audiences to understand their daily pressures and motivations. From there, it moves into initial campaign briefing, giving your internal teams an exclusive ‘first look’ at campaigns or launches before the official go-live date.

You’ll then want to consider how you can integrate content, bring monitoring and reporting together, and celebrate successes across both external and internal channels.

Taking the time to connect these dots means internal comms finally has the chance to drive tangible and measurable business value. Plus, because you have direct access to this audience, it’s easy to build feedback loops to see exactly how your messaging is performing, and where it can be improved.

Quiz: put your internal communication to the test

So, it’s time for a quick reality check. Let’s put your internal comms strategy to the test and see where your business actually stands. Answer the following questions to find out if you're bringing your employees along on the brand journey - or if you've left them behind somewhere (and, hmmm, you can't quite remember where…)

• How does your business announce major strategic pivots or decisions?

1. Leaders jump on the weekly team call to break down the business reasoning face-to-face, then open up the floor for real questions.
2. Everyone gets a long, carefully-worded email - it’s signed by the senior leadership team, but sounds suspiciously like it was written by legal.
3. The rumours start on WhatsApp, and half the team finds out because a client asks them about it on a call.

• What does your new employees’ first day look like?

1. They receive a warm welcome from their immediate team, a clear 30-60-90 day roadmap, and introductory calls are scheduled with key people.
2. They get their laptop log-in, a link to a Google Drive folder with onboarding docs, and a vague “let-me-know-if-you-need-anything”.
3. They spend the day badgering IT because their email doesn’t work, while nobody on the team is quite sure who was supposed to train them.

• You just bought an expensive new piece of software. How do you get the team to use it?

1. The software champions give a live demo, showing exactly how it will save time and improve efficiency, followed up by practical, bite-sized guides.
2. A generic and mandatory webinar invite lands in your team’s inbox - with zero explanation why the old software was ditched.
3. It’s mentioned once, briefly, in an all-team meeting, and then leaders wonder why adoption rates are so low.

• How do people genuinely feel about your internal newsletter?

1. The team loves it, and we have the data to prove it. It shouts about big wins, explains strategy in a human way, and keeps everyone genuinely excited about where the business is heading.
2. It gets sent every Friday without exception, but it’s a rather dry and uninspiring round-up of updates. Staff skim-read out of a feeling of obligation.
3. It’s a block of text that reads like an annual report… or it hasn’t been sent out since the person who owned it left six months ago.

Mostly As? You’re killing it. Consider yourself the crème de la crème of internal comms.

Mostly Bs? You’re getting there. You’ve got a plan and the intent’s there. It just needs some refinement to move it from being a box-ticking exercise to a genuine opportunity for engagement.

Mostly Cs? Erm, we may need to talk… Your current internal comms strategy is either non-existent or just not delivering value. The result is, most likely, a frustrated, confused workforce who’s struggling to find our relevant information and understand who to talk to when questions arise.

Of course, this is a simplified look at things, but you get the general gist. Most businesses find themselves somewhere in the middle; they’re doing internal communication, but the impact it’s having is up for debate.

Internal comms that inspires

At Pod, internal communication is something that truly gets us inspired. If you’re a B2B marketer and your internal comms plan is experiencing a bit of an identity crisis, don’t panic. We help brands by focusing on four key areas:

• Internal reputation audit
• Strategic narrative alignment
• Crisis or change support
• Content strategies, events or delivery

As a full-service B2B marketing agency, we seamlessly bring communications, strategy, digital, content and creative together. This means any internal communication campaign is always integrated with wider marketing activity.

We also specialise in supporting organisations in highly regulated and high-scrutiny environments, where safety and compliance lives and dies by first-rate communications.

Don’t just take our word for it - take a look at how we helped a client win Gold at the CIPR PRide Awards with an original, engaging internal comms initiative that truly got its employees on board.